Sarjevane, Adriatic Sea, April 20 2010

On this island, there's what one would describe as a Spanish hacienda/convent. It was here, that the man who caught the little girl just the other day, was found, along with other people. One of these people was a doctor, a general practitioner, but he wasn't there for his expertise alone, but also for experience reasons. This man and this doctor were in a conversation with each other.

"I don't know what it is that you or your boss want with this man..." the doctor said.

"I didn't even know I had a boss." the man interrupted, "But I assume you meant my friend, Mr. Winch."

"OK, your friend." the doctor replied, with a slight hint of annoyance, "But what I want to say, every time I tried to help him, he threatened to kill me. He's a very dangerous man."

"I know that, Dr. Strauss." the man replied.

"It's Struyss." the doctor corrected him.

As the name, as well as the doctor, were Flemish, the man had some difficulty to get the name right, but he tried either way: "Sorry, Dr. Struyss. But he's here because he's dangerous. And you were here, because you've been in a wheelchair before."

"How do you even know that?" Stryuss asked.

"Only because your boyfriend works for one of Group W's subsidiaries." the man answered, "For more details, you should ask Largo himself. But as I understand it, since you had to go through rehab before, you'd understand our dangerous man better than anyone else."

"OK, I understand, I think." Stryuss told him, "But I'm not sure he's able to... move so much just yet."

"We won't know it until we try." the man replied, "What we're about to ask of him, is one of the reasons we took him in to begin with."

"Ah! Just the man!" they ran across another doctor.

"Dr. Bacon." the man greeted him, "What have you got on our young guest?"

"Well, I don't know where you got your intel from." Bacon answered, "But you were right. Her DNA reminds me a little of that of a feline. But here's something that the files don't mention."

Bacon stretched out his hand, which wore a pink plastic glove. The man noticed the glove, and suddenly remembered he had never seen Bacon not wearing them. For that matter, Bacon never took off his sunglasses either, and his face looked like a mask. What he's hiding exactly, he doesn't know, but he's the best on the field of bio-engineering that they could find, so who cared about what he looked like?

Anyhow, the man took in his hands whatever it was that Bacon gave him. It was a bottle of pills, of which the label said they were Tryptophan.

"And this is...?" the man asked.

"It's Tryptophan." Bacon answered, "It supplements serotonin that her body is supposed to make. It's a little designer's flaw in her system. If she doesn't get any of it, she gets seizures and eventually dies. We can mix it with her food, but she may need some of that on the field."

"Thanks." the man said to Bacon, when he suddenly stopped at a door, asking both doctors: "Are they in here?"

"Yes." Stryuss answered, "But are you sure you want to be in there with them?"

"They're both restrained, right?" the man asked them, after which the doctors nodded, "Then I have nothing to fear."

The man enters the room. The room in question was big enough to be a mess-hall, but had just one table with enough seats for about twenty people. The only lights there were, were from transportable lamps, almost the same type you'd find on a movie-set, only because there's otherwise no electricity anywhere around this building. On one of the seats, there was the little girl, of a seemingly ridiculous amount of chains was used to keep her restrained. On another seat, just opposite the girl, there was the man with the eye-patch that was found in Cleveland two years earlier, who was simply handcuffed. Seeing those two, the man sat down at the head of the table. He put his briefcase on the table, opened it and took out two files. After putting the briefcase on the floor, he opened one file, and read out loud what was in it.

"Reference number X5-452. Barcode number 332960073452, but I've been told you prefer the name "Max". Part of a project called Manticore, Chimera-class specimen, human female with feline abilities, among other things."

"How do you know all that?" the girl, Max, asked.

The man ignored her, opened up another file and read out loud what was in it: "S.D. Robert "Snake" Plissken. Special Forces, two Purple Hearts, youngest man ever to be decorated by the President, rescued another one in 1997, from what was at the time New York Prison. Was even given a life-long sentence in the same prison for robbery and desertion. Got excused from those crimes, but never stopped his criminal activities, from what I gather."

"So you know who we are." the one called Snake hissed, "But you are...?"

The man put down the file and replied: "I have many names, but to make it easier for you, you can call me Thirteen."

As Max is used to having numbers instead of names, she didn't question this, but Snake on the other hand wasn't entirely satisfied: "Thirteen?"

The man, Thirteen, opened his shirt's collar, so he could show them his tattoo on his neck, that had the Roman numeral XIII: "Yes, Thirteen. I take it you've been to busy to follow the news or read books, or else you'd have known who I am."

"Fuck it." Snake sighed.

"Why did you bring us here?" Max finally fired this question, "And where is here?"

"The Mediterranean Sea." Thirteen answered, "But I can't explain why you're here until the other ones are here."

"Other ones?" Snake questioned.

"I am however at liberty to say that if you don't do what I tell you this." Thirteen replied, "Since we know so much about you both, we also know that there are a bunch of people who'd like to get your hands on you."

"So we either do as you tell us, or you'll sell us out." Snake hissed.

"Right now, it doesn't make much of a difference." Max said, in reference to her chains.

"Don't worry." Thirteen assured her, "Once you've heard me out, those things will get off."

Both Snake and Max shrugged, and listened to what Thirteen tells them next: "I want you both to go to Manhattan Island, find a place called Rat Streets, and find a man with chains."

This sounded so weird, both Max and Snake looked at each other, surprised, but Snake was the one to talk: "That's it?"

"For now, yes." Thirteen explained, "He's one of the other ones that need to be here. But we've been having some trouble in both finding and capturing this man, if it is at all a man, but we hoped maybe you two will have more luck."

"Is that why you kept me here for two years?" Snake asked, "So I could be your lapdog?"

"You've been here for two years to recover from the Cleveland incident." Thirteen corrected him, "You'd be dead if it wasn't for us."

"And I'm supposed to thank you for that?" Snake wasn't satisfied.

"We just didn't think that we'd need you so shortly after your recovery, I do admit that." Thirteen added.

"So all we gotta do is look for a man with chains?" Max asked, "You haven't got enough of those?"

Thirteen grinned at hearing her say that: "You remind me of my... I was about to say wife, but I'm still not sure of what she is exactly."

"So you told us what you need us for." Snake brought up, as he held up his cuffed hands.

"Just one more thing." Thirteen quickly said, "Don't think of trying to run or do anything behind our backs. If you do, we'd know."

"Oh really?" Snake didn't sound impressed.

"Noticed how there aren't any cameras in this building?" Thirteen pointed out, "Including where you two have spend your nights? And yet, somehow, one of our doctors know..."

He pointed to Max as he said the following: "... that you tried pull the bars out of the window, three times."

This surprised Max. The idea that she'd try to break bars can be an educated guess, but knowing that she did it three times?

"And you..." he then directed himself towards Snake, "... have tried to figure out how to fake your suicide, so you can escape from here."

Again, this was too detailed to be just a guess. So who is this doctor, and how does he know all these things?

"I see that I got your attention." Thirteen then took a key out of his pocket, with which he unchained Max, "There'll be a helicopter that will take you to the airport, where a plane will be waiting for you, which will take you to Newark Airport. From there you go to Manhattan Island. Once you're there, you're to take this man with you, go back to Newark, take that plane..."

"I got ya." Snake interrupted, as the handcuffs were taken off at last.